Of Snow and Coffee and Hermes Scarves
by Jane Krahe
Summary: Full summary/prompt inside. It's a little strange and rambling guys. It kinda got away with me. Hope you like it anyway. :  Contains spoilers for 2x06


**Title: Of Snow and Coffee and Hermes Scarves  
Author: janekrahe  
Pairing/Character(s): Kurt/Karofsky  
Rating: pg-13 for language  
Word Count: 3447  
Spoilers: For Never Been Kissed  
Summary: for a prompt at kurtofsky_fic : **It's getting frigid outside in the Ohio weather. Kurt forgets he doesn't have a ride home after school and is left standing in the front waiting for a miracle while thinking about things that are warm. The miracle comes in the form of Karofsky telling him to get into his car. Kurt is reluctant, but he really wants to go home so he goes for it. Until he realizes that Karofsky isn't heading towards Kurt's house, but his own...

Of Snow and Coffee and Hermes Scarves

Kurt shivered a little and drew his coat tighter around him. Snow was swirling in the air and his breath was coming in frosty white puffs. The school grounds were completely empty, and the thick blanket of powdery new snow muffled sound, making Kurt feel as if he were the only person on the planet. There were no cars out – no one goes out in a blizzard.

_It's not technically a blizzard_, Kurt scolded himself. _Don't be a drama queen._

It was Kurt's own fault, really. After his iPhone was broken by – _don't even think about him, that's too confusing at the moment_ – Kurt had to order another, but had yet to receive it. He'd stayed late after school to help the girls with their costumes for the Winter Wonderland show. But he fielded every offer of a ride home with, "No, it's fine, my dad is picking me up."

"Are you sure?" Rachel's face had been extra sympathetic, and Kurt had a feeling she sensed more than she let on.

"Fine. He'll be here soon. And it's not that bad out there."

Well, fuck that.

Kurt didn't remember until he'd been standing in the snow for nearly an hour, but his dad was two towns over getting a checkup on his heart. Carol drove him. Finn was out at Breadstix with Rachel. When Kurt realized he was stranded, he tried to go back in the school to use the phone, but it was too late – all the doors were locked.

It was officially getting dark, and Kurt could no longer feel his feet. _Ugh, forget this. I may as well walk._ Kurt's house was across town from the school, but he didn't really see any other options. Huffing out a sigh that turned white in the cold air, Kurt turned and began trudging through the foot-thick snow. _These boots were NOT made for this_.

He made it nearly five blocks before he began to despair. There wasn't a single car on the road, and goddamnit, he was _cold._ Kurt stopped under a huge weeping willow, its branches covered with snow and ice, glittering in the low light. It was quite beautiful, but he couldn't be bothered with that. His feet had previously been numb from the cold, but now they were beginning to ache, a dull, scary ache that made Kurt think wildly of frostbite and the loss of limbs. _I can't rock the one-legged look_, he thought dazedly. _None of my cute jeans would fit right._

He knew he was hallucinating when he heard the sound of an engine. _It's a truck, _Kurt thought to himself. _Mid-nineties, maybe. Well maintained, but nothing special._ That was it; he was falling into hypothermia. He was hearing phantom trucks! Kurt wondered what they'd put on his gravestone. _…He was an ice queen right to the end…_

"Hey, Hummel!"

Kurt froze. He knew that voice. He turned towards the road, and the dark blue Nissan that sat idling at the curb.

"You need a ride?"

Kurt was dead. He knew he had to be dead, because no way would David Karofsky be sitting at the side of the road offering to let Kurt in his truck. It wasn't Heaven, though, and Kurt wasn't sure it could be called Hell. He must be in some strange purgatory where gay virgins end up. He laughed to himself. _I wonder what Karofsky's doing here then?_

"Hummel?" Karofsky's voice was almost… concerned.

"What?" Kurt finally snapped. He wrapped his arms around himself. "Come to laugh at me?"

Karofsky's brow furrowed. "Are you deaf, dude? I asked if you wanted a ride."

That's right, he did. "Oh," Kurt said quietly.

Karofsky waited for several moments before prompting, a little impatiently, "Well? Anytime now."

_Fuck it_, Kurt thought. _This day couldn't get anymore messed up._ Though somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that yes, it _could_ get more messed up, he decided he was too cold to care. "Sure," he replied. He walked around to the other side of the truck just as Karofsky leaned over and popped the door open. Kurt climbed in and shut the door behind him. He buckled the seat belt and waited for the other shoe to drop.

But Karofsky didn't say anything. He just put the truck in gear and started to drive.

Kurt stared out the window as the world glided by in a slide of white. He was shivering still, his body curling in on itself with the effort. His teeth were rattling, and he hated being so cliché, but he just couldn't help it.

Suddenly, Karofsky turned towards him, and Kurt flinched. He fucking _knew_ this would happen.

But Karofsky was reaching into the space behind the seats. He turned back, his letterman's jacket clutched in his hand. "Here," he said gruffly, shoving it at Kurt.

Kurt just stared at him in confusion.

They stopped at a red light, and Karofsky turned to look at him. Kurt couldn't read the look on his face, but he was certain his brain was still covered in icicles, so that didn't mean anything. "The heater's broken," Karofsky said bluntly. "And you're shaking the damn truck with your shivering. Take the jacket." He shoved it at Kurt again.

Kurt cautiously took the hideous red and white thing from him, just as the light turned green. He draped it over himself like a blanket and turned back to the window. Oh dear Godga, that jacket was _warm_. He moaned slightly and snuggled down into it, taking a deep breath. It smelled like cologne and hair gel and coffee and _boy_. Kurt leaned his head against the window as his shaking eased.

Unfortunately, the warmer he got, the more his head cleared. And he soon realized that not only had he been stupid enough to get in a car with his tormentor, but he and said tormentor were now headed east, completely away from Kurt's house.

Kurt sat up cautiously. "Um… Karofsky? I don't live out here." He spoke softly, like the other boy was an animal he was trying desperately not to anger.

"I never asked if you wanted to go home," was Karofsky's spookily calm reply. "I asked if you needed a ride."

Kurt felt his bottom lip tremble as a wave of fear rushed through him. "Please…" he began slowly, his voice shaking, "I'd like to go home."

Karofsky didn't reply.

Kurt stared at the other boy and wondered if he really would hurt him. He wouldn't have thought so, but after the incident in the locker room…

Kurt's eyes instinctively focused on the jock's clothing. He was wearing nothing but dark blue jeans and a plain black v-neck t-shirt. "Aren't you cold?" Kurt blurted without thinking.

"Nope," was Karofsky's quick reply. "Guess it's just all that _chub_ keeping me warm." He tossed a sideways glance at Kurt, but Kurt could have sworn he seemed… amused.

"Right," Kurt laughed nervously. "Um… about that –"

"Don't." Karofsky shook his head. "Don't. I don't want to hear it. Or talk about it. Okay?"

"Okay." Kurt sat back a little. Normally, he'd be going Queen Bitch on Karofsky, demanding he pull his tacky little Nissan over and let him out, but Kurt was just… tired. He was tired of the fighting, and tired of the bullying, and tired of the struggle. He figured if Karofsky is taking him somewhere to beat the fuck out of him, well, at least then he'd feel something.

_Jeez, that's depressing_, Kurt scolded himself.

"What you did was fucked up, though," came Karofsky's voice out of nowhere.

Okay, _that_ pissed Kurt off. "What _I_ did?" he asked, sitting up. "What _exactly_ did I do to you that was any worse than any of the crap you did to me?"

"You tried to out me in front of the whole school," Karofsky snapped. "You and your little boyfriend. You couldn't have talked to me in private or something?" He was frowning now, his fingers gripping the steering wheel turning white.

"Confront you in private? Karofsky, _I was scared of you_. I didn't know what you'd do to me!"

Karofsky's frown softened a bit, and his hands relaxed their grip. "You really scared of me?" he asked curtly.

"Why?" Kurt sneered. "Does it make you feel like a man?"

"Not exactly," was Karofsky's soft reply.

Kurt realized suddenly that they were slowing down. Karofsky pulled into a long driveway. Wiping his hand across the foggy windshield, Kurt peered outside. They were headed towards a large white house, gorgeous, expensive, and completely _not_ what he expected. "Do you… live here?" Kurt asked.

"Yep." The truck slowed to a stop, and Karofsky turned the ignition off.

They got out of the truck and headed inside. Kurt stopped short in the doorway.

Karofsky's house was _beautiful. _

"Wow," Kurt said, looking around.

"What?" Karofsky asked, not even glancing at their surroundings. He dropped his keys on a small table near the door. "Follow me."

"Where?" Kurt asked cautiously.

"The kitchen."

_Kitchens are safe, I guess_, Kurt thought to himself. _Unless he plans to kill me and chop me up and feed me to the garbage disposal._

Kurt followed, soon finding himself in a gleaming, massive kitchen, all done up in stainless steel and glass. It was sleek and modern and… cold.

Karofsky began fiddling with a coffee maker. "You want some coffee?" he asked, his back to Kurt.

"Um… sure." Kurt's hands were shaking, but he wasn't cold anymore. He wasn't quite sure what he was nervous about; Karofsky didn't seem to be in a particularly violent mood. He thought maybe he should look around for a phone, but he wasn't sure he wanted Karofsky to know he was doing that. Clearing his throat, Kurt asked, "So… where's the bathroom?"

Karofsky turned and motion towards a hallway. Staircase through there; it's upstairs, second door on the left."

Without another word, Kurt headed in that direction, marveling at the sheer size of Karofsky's house. It seemed worryingly empty – it was really obvious they were the only ones there. At the top of the stairs, Kurt glanced at the doors to either side of him. One was plain, but the other had a small, tasteful plaque that read "David", inscribed in metal in pretty script. Beneath it was a McKinley High pennant. There was no _way_ Kurt was passing up this opportunity. He glanced behind him at the stairs, then took a deep breath and opened the door.

The room was… nice. Done in shades of blue and dark woods, it was clean and masculine. There were a few posters on the walls, but they were perfectly arranged and glossy. The bed was made, the wastebasket was empty, and the air smelled of warm dust, as if it had just been vacuumed. Kurt moved further into the room, studying as hard as he could. He felt like all Karofsky's secrets were here, and if he could just _find_ them…

The posters were all sports poster, but there was a very telling lack of the usual posters of scantily clad women that graced other teenage boys' walls. Kurt smirked a little and moved toward the closet. On the door was a poster of a hockey player. Kurt opened the door, and his smile widened. Tacked up on the other side of the door was a Queen poster, Freddie Mercury in all his flamboyant glory. Kurt shook his head. Even homophobes love Queen, so of course closet-cases would too.

The closet was boring, nothing in it but neatly spaced clothes on hangers and shoes in a trim line on the floor. Kurt was starting to get a weird, Stepford feeling. He knew for a fact that Karofsky's school lockers – his normal one and his sports one – were messy, smelly, and disorganized.

Shutting the closet, Kurt turned back to the room at large. It was then that he noticed something strange. A small triangle of bright, garish purple peeking out from under Karofsky's pillow. Kurt went to the bed, but didn't sit down. Something about sitting on Karofsky's bed just seemed… too intimate. He gripped the purple cloth. To his surprise, it was soft, expensive silk. Kurt pulled.

It was a scarf, purple and white paisley. It was silk. It was Hermes. It was _his_.

Kurt remembered this scarf. It went missing about a week after his and Karofsky's little encounter in the locker room. And here it was, under Karofsky's pillow. Why would he…?

_Oh_. Kurt hurriedly shoved it back under the pillow, because the idea of Karofsky lying in bed, smelling his scarf, his scent, and jerking off was just…

Kurt cleared his throat, smoothing his hair. He knew Karofsky would be wondering where he'd gone. He headed back downstairs, making sure to shut Karofsky's door. The jock was in the kitchen, sitting at the island counter, two cups of coffee in front of him.

"Um… thanks." Kurt licked his lips – and watched as Karofsky's eyes followed the movement.

Kurt knew he should be disgusted, but dear Godga, it made him feel _powerful_. He did it again, very deliberately running his tongue over his bottom lip. Karofsky's eyes zeroed in, watching him with a look Kurt had seen before, but had never understood. When the other boy look predatory, it wasn't because he wanted to hurt Kurt, it was because he just wanted him.

Taking pity on the poor closet-case, Kurt perched on one of the tall stools, pulling his coffee towards him. He took a sip and then said, "So… your house is very… clean."

Karofsky stared into his mug. "My stepdad likes for everything to be in its place."

"Mmm. Including you?" Kurt cocked an eyebrow.

Karofsky raised his head, meeting Kurt's gaze. "You're kind of a bitch sometimes, you know that?"

Kurt smiled. "I'm aware." He took another sip of his coffee. It was really good gourmet coffee from one of those special coffee pots that only makes one cup at a time.

"So," Karofsky began, fidgeting, his eyes darting around, "about your boyfriend –"

"He's not my boyfriend," Kurt interrupted without thinking. He'd gotten so used to correcting the rest of the glee club whenever they made that assumption about him and Blaine that it had become automatic.

Karofsky seemed to be trying not to smile. "He's not?"

Kurt glared at him. "What do you care?"

Karofsky scoffed unconvincingly. "I don't."

"Uh-huh." Kurt ran a fingertip around the rim of his mug. Karofsky's eye tracked the movement. Kurt could almost see his pupils dilating. _Okay_, Kurt told himself._ Time for some payback._ Kurt dipped his finger in his coffee, swirling it around, then raised his hand to his mouth.

Karofsky's jaw was hanging slack, his breathing speeding up, as Kurt slipped his finger between his lips. He sucked on the slim digit, his cheeks hollowing, and the jock made a funny, choked off noise in his throat. Karofsky's fingers tightened on his mug until they were white.

Dear Godga, he was teasing a sexually-frustrated closet-case bully. Kurt was starting to think he had a death-wish. And the weird, fucked-up thing was that taunting Karofsky was kind of turning him on. He'd never felt so powerful before. He'd spent a year or more trailing around after Finn like a lost little puppy, but now he had Karofsky, the big, strong jock, in the palm of his elegantly manicured hand. He pulled his finger from between his lips, making a soft _pop_ sound.

Karofsky was breathing hard through his nose, his expression intense.

Kurt smiled a little. "Why did you bring me here?" he asked. Karofsky's eyes were a little unfocused. "Karofsky?"

The jock blinked a little, meeting Kurt's gaze. "I… don't know. It just seemed like a good idea at the time."

"I guess we'll add 'impulse control' to the long list of your many, varied faults then." Kurt took a dainty sip of his coffee.

Karofsky's expression clouded. "Fuck you, Hummel," he snarled. Kurt raised his eyebrows. "Like you're so fucking perfect."

Kurt laughed a little. "Of course I'm not perfect," he said. "I'm annoyingly stereotypically flamboyant, my voice can shatter glass, and I'm almost as crazy as Rachel Berry."

"Got a nice ass, though," Karofsky muttered into his coffee.

Kurt choked a little. "Yes, well…" He felt himself turning furiously red. No one had ever even _commented_ on his appearance before, let alone in a (albeit rather vulgar) complimentary way. He couldn't stop himself from asking, "Really?"

"No," Karofsky replied with a completely straight face. "I'm just saying it to be _nice_."

Kurt had to laugh a little at that. "I have to say, I'm surprised you're being so civil."

"So'm I," Karofsky said. "Honestly, I don't think about things too much. I mean, I try not to. You think too much and everything gets… messed up. I just do stuff without thinking, because thinking… there's just stuff I don't want to think."

Kurt wanted to ask, _Like about me? Like about being gay? Like about how you kissed me? _but he was sure he'd be pushing his luck. Instead, he said, "You should think more often. You're not too bad at it."

Karofsky looked at him like he couldn't decide if he was serious or not. Finally, he said, "It's getting late. I should take you home." He reached out to take Kurt's cup.

"Right, I –" Kurt began, but froze. Karofsky's hand had settled over his as he tried to grab the empty mug.

Karofsky's hand was huge and warm and callused. It engulfed Kurt's completely. It was a startling sensation, and reminded Kurt of just how big, how _strong_ the jock was. And just how tiny he was in comparison. Kurt swallowed, staring at Karofsky. The other boy was staring at their hands, a strange, almost soft expression on his face. His thumb moved, stroking across Kurt's wrist. Kurt drew in a sharp breath at the very unexpected gesture, and it seemed to wake the jock up. Karofsky cleared his throat and took a very deliberate step back, releasing Kurt's hand. "Come on," he said gruffly. "I'll take you back to your place." He headed towards the door, his back to Kurt.

Kurt let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. His hand felt cold suddenly, and he missed the warmth from before. But he pushed that out of his mind, because it was messed up, and more angst then Kurt wanted deal with. Instead, he got up and followed Karofsky out to his truck.

The snow had stopped, and the world was glittering in the evening light. Kurt got in the truck and Karofsky started it without a word. The ride back to Kurt's house was silent, and Kurt tried hard not to think about the fact that Karofsky knew exactly where he lived. When they arrived, Karofsky pulled over to the curb, and Kurt undid his belt. "I guess I'll… see you in school tomorrow." Kurt felt like a complete idiot for saying it. Of course he would. He'd see him half a second before he hit the lockers at full force.

"Yeah, I guess," Karofsky replied, not looking at him.

Kurt gripped the door handle, then hesitated. He wasn't sure it would work, but he wanted to try. "Hey," he said. "When you throw me into the lockers tomorrow… could you maybe not throw so hard?" He looked hopefully at Karofsky.

The jock was silent for a long time. But when he turned and looked at Kurt, his expression was amused. "I'll stop tossing you into lockers if you never wear a corset to school again."

Kurt raised an eyebrow. "The one from last week?"

Karofsky nodded. "That… was very distracting."

Kurt nodded thoughtfully then said, "And how will you explain your lack of violence to Azimio?"

"Azimio stopped caring what I do the day I wouldn't set Wheelchair Kid's wheels on fire. It… seemed a bit much," he added with a shrug. "Besides, no one notices what I do." His voice was sullen.

After a long moment, Kurt replied softly, "I've noticed." Karofsky looked over at him and Kurt smiled. "Thanks for the ride."

Hopping out of the truck, Kurt turned and gave a small wave, which Karofsky returned with a rue little smile of his own. Kurt watched as he drove away, his mind whirling with new information, and a strange feeling settling down in his chest. He wasn't sure what it was yet, or even if it was good or bad, but he kind of liked it, and he hoped it would stick around for awhile.


End file.
